Highlights from LAC and New Priorities |
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By Rodrigo de la Parra
Vice President and Managing Director, Latin America and the Caribbean
Dear Friends,
As the 2021 fiscal year just ended, I would like to reflect on key training initiatives delivered during this period. Thanks to fruitful partnerships, hundreds of people from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) who were not familiar with unique identifiers systems or ICANN were trained in several topics, from the history of Internet development to Domain Name System (DNS) security threats and Universal Acceptance (UA).
Together with the Mexican Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions (ANUIES), we reached new regional audiences in academia and trained more than 540 students. Our regional team also partnered with the Latin American and Caribbean Islands Regional At-Large Organization (LACRALO) to host a UA training series that attracted over 150 participants from 14 LAC countries.
My team and I look forward to continuing in this vein, and to building regional capacity for existing and new friends in order to facilitate LAC’s meaningful participation in ICANN’s processes and topics of interest.
A special thanks to our partners without whom all this would not have been possible.
Here's to another successful fiscal year ahead!
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ICANN72 Will Be a Virtual Annual General Meeting |
ICANN72 will convene as a Virtual Annual General Meeting due to the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The health and safety of the ICANN community and staff is always a top priority, and as such, holding ICANN72 as an in-person or hybrid meeting would not be feasible by its scheduled date. The ICANN Board also affirmed its intent to hold ICANN73 as a hybrid meeting with an in-person component if it is feasible to do so.
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ICANN Extends Travel and Face-to-Face Meeting Ban |
The ICANN organization has extended its current ban on travel and face-to-face meetings.
The evolving trajectory of the virus, including the emergence and spread of new variants and the inequality of vaccine access across the world, as well as the rapidly changing travel landscape and ability to secure visas represent unpredictable risks.
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Information Transparency Initiative (ITI) Update: Watch Recordings of the ICANN Public Comment Submission Training Webinars |
The ICANN organization held a series of training webinars outlining the new Public Comment submission process.
During these sessions, our teams provided the community with step-by-step instructions on how to draft and publish a Public Comment submission and outlined how to manage your current and past submissions.
Missed the webinars? Watch the recordings, read more about ITI, or contact the ITI team, here.
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Training Week with NIC Brazil |
From 21 to 25 June, ICANN’s Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) team joined Capacity Building Week, organized by CEPTRO.br. CEPTRO offered an innovative virtual environment where ICANN’s LAC team engaged with participants through an interactive virtual booth, allowing the exchange of ideas in an informal fashion.
The regional team took the opportunity to promote Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC) and hyperlocal to an audience of 200 members from Brazilian Internet service providers (ISPs). Congratulations to all members from NIC.br for taking on new interactive technologies.
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ICANN71 LAC Readout Session |
During the ICANN71 LAC Readout session, ICANN Board members Lito Ibarra and Patricio Poblete talked about the Board’s activities during the meeting and provided a summary of ICANN71 resolutions.
ICANN’s Meeting Planning Operations Director Josh Baulch shared an interesting summary of the Public Meeting survey results and the ICANN71 By the Numbers report. Mary Wong, ICANN’s Vice President, Strategic Community Operations, Planning, and Engagement, and Caribbean community member Claire Craig discussed key takeaways from the plenary session on ICANN’s multistakeholder model within the Internet governance ecosystem.
The readout session concluded with ICANN’s Regional Technical Engagement Manager Nicolas Antoniello delivering a summary on the DNS security related-sessions.
If you missed this webinar, you can access the recordings here.
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ICANN Board Approves Subset of EPDP-TempSpec Phase 2A Policy Recommendations
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On 21 June 2021, the ICANN Board approved four policy recommendations from the Expedited Policy Development Process on the Temporary Specification (EPDP-TempSpec) for gTLD (generic top-level domain) Registration Data Phase 2A.
The four approved recommendations cover topics that were carried over from Phase 1 and include city field redaction; display of privacy/proxy registrations; an updated purpose for data processing related to security, stability, and resiliency; and the time periods associated with data retention.
The remaining Phase 2 recommendations, which relate to the System for Standardized Access/Disclosure (SSAD), will be considered by the ICANN Board following the SSAD Operational Design Phase (ODP). For more information on the ODP, please read more.
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Members of ccNSO Vote on Proposed Policy for Retirement of ccTLDs |
In July, members of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) voted to adopt the proposed policy on the retirement of country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs). This is an important milestone for the ccNSO, and ccTLD managers had the opportunity to show their support though the voting process. The adopted policy will now be sent to the ICANN Board.
Learn more about the proposed policy on the retirement of ccTLDs, and the ccNSO Council recommendation to adopt the proposed policy. For the election results, go to the announcement section on ccnso.icann.org.
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Hello World: Enabling IDNs |
Over the past 20 years, the technical community, ICANN, and volunteers around the world have been working together to internationalize the Domain Name System (DNS) to promote linguistic diversity on the Internet through the introduction of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).
Don’t miss this blog that provides an in-depth look at the importance of IDNs as well as a detailed progress report on their usage around the world.
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ICANN Board Takes Action on SSR2 Recommendations |
ICANN Board Chair Maarten Botterman has outlined the Board’s decisions related to the 63 recommendations made in the second Security, Stability, and Resiliency (SSR2) Review Team Final Report.
- SSR1 implementation and intended effects
- Key stability issues within ICANN
- Contracts, compliance, and transparency around Domain Name System (DNS) abuse
- Additional SSR-related concerns regarding the global DNS
The Board considered Public Comment submissions to inform their actions on the SSR2 Review Team's final recommendations.
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DNS Security Threat Mitigation Program Update |
The ICANN org shared an update on the internal cross-functional Domain Name System (DNS) Security Threat Mitigation Program and introduced a newly launched webpage that provides a central resource for the program’s activities and updates.
The org also hosted a community webinar on 22 July where current projects and activities, including contractual compliance and audits, Domain Activity Abuse Reporting (DAAR), and Domain Name Security Threat Information Collection and Reporting (DNSTICR) were shared.
Learn more about this important initiative here.
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Lendon Telesford
Grenada
Lendon Telesford holds a master’s in engineering in computer applied technology from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, and a bachelor’s with honors in information systems management from St. George's University, Grenada. Lendon currently serves as the Telecom and Information Communication Technology Specialist at the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission in Grenada.
He has a special interest in national and Caribbean development, demonstrated through his work at the Regulatory Commission, to promote the development and use of Grenada’s country code top-level domain (ccTLD), .gd, and the Grenada Internet Exchange Point (IXP). He also serves as a committee member for the Universal Service Fund for Grenada, providing advice on the selection of projects for the benefit of persons in unserved and underserved communities.
Outside of his professional contributions, Lendon has an avid interest and appreciation for music and creative forms of poetry. He considers himself a technologist, thinker, entrepreneur, and social change enthusiast.
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Government Engagement Publications
The ICANN Government and Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) Engagement team publishes content from our subject matter experts.
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OCTO Publications
Did you know that the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) creates and publishes a portfolio of research papers and technical briefings for ICANN's diverse technical community?
See the full list of OCTO publications here.
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